Lyor Cohen Quotes

If you are the record label who owns Lady Gaga, and you have a new artist coming up, you can say, 'Let's have the artist play just before Gaga.' Now you've exposed the huge Gaga audience to the new artist. It's similar to showing a trailer before a movie. The hit creates a hit.

A real foolproof way to do it is play your stuff by hook or by crook and build up a grass roots following.

Distributing the music is so easy it's moot. So now the delicate art of calling attention to your music means everything. Marketing is distribution.

There are certainly things labels can still provide that indie artists can't. They can pave the way to radio and pay big bucks for promotion.

Being a part of exhibitions is not a burden; it's another way for an independent label such as mine to reach a larger audience by exposing them to my whole body of work.

Being a new band, I just can't think of a better way to get your name out to all of the Hard-Rock crowd than playing with twenty of the biggest Hard-Rock bands in the world.

This is a business built on promotion. We've been giving music away to radio stations for 30 years.

I don't think they like the idea that the people who are buying the record get to choose what goes out, because it's their job. The fans even pre-ordered stock to make sure that I had some sort of presence.

The marketing is just as important as the music, almost.

There has never been any proper commitment to marketing these artists and their music. We are not Sony.

I remember when I first came out as an artist, back in 2004 or 2005, the record label used to take me to all the radio stations and just have me sit in, like, their lunchroom or their conference room, and play for the whole staff. Just to introduce them to me so they would play my records.

There's not a great danger in releasing the first single from an album without a video because the momentum from the last album will cause large numbers of fans to buy it.

Part of the mission of Nash Icon is taking away some of the day-to-day, hand-to-hand combat that you have to do to continue the mainstream country-radio relationship.

I think the best publicity I can get for my music is to conduct it.

You don't need a record deal. You'll have the industry begging for you, when you build your buzz.

Here's the tragedy of the modern record business: It's radio. If you're not on radio, nobody really is going to hear you or see you or care about you.

One problem with a lot of musicians is that they remove themselves in a studio and make a record and assume people are going to pay attention to it just because they've made it.

Music is a universal language and really an interesting way for a brand to expand their consumer horizon.

I'm a fan of music documentaries and I always love seeing what goes on behind the scenes. In kind of the new era of record companies and record releases and that sort of thing, there has to be way more content for the audience.

Generally what you see happen is these talented kids make a great album, but they don't have a chance unless they have someone working with them who has integrity. They get thrown out by MTV and radio in six weeks, and they don't get any time to grow.

Most companies that are successful listen to people and see what they want and they make that. So when I used to make songs, I'd make mixtapes. The public would tell me what they like and then I would make songs based on what they like. That's how I knew 'Ridin' Dirty' was going to be big - they told me they liked this kind of music.

When I first heard 'Let Me Love You,' I knew immediately it was going to be a hit. I believed in it and I had to literally force it down the throats of his record label, who weren't believers at first.

My goal there on the business side of things is to become the Dr. Dre of social media. He was mentoring younger artists and helping them launch their careers, like Eminem.

We released 'Mad World' as a single because we felt the music press would like it.

I want to build up the most hype around my album. I wouldn't just throw it away.